Pros and Cons of Middle East Refugees Coming to America

[clickandtweet handle=”” hashtag=”#middleeast #refugees” related=”” layout=”” position=””]Millions of Middle East refugees are fleeing or have fled Middle Eastern countries because of wars, ISIS and terrorism and economic crisis.[/clickandtweet] The countries they’ve turned to are torn between compassion and fear that some of the refuges may in fact be undercover terrorists. And so the borders are closing.

The outcome: Middle East refugees are having a difficult time whether they are in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan or elsewhere. Their sheer numbers have caused some European leaders to limit the number of Middle East refugees who enter their countries. In some cases doors have completely shut. While the refugee problem is not as acute in America, the refugee situation nevertheless raises concerns about national security, terrorism, health issues, disease, finances and assimilation. Concerns over fraud and welfare costs and terrorism are also very real.

Joining host, Dennis McCuistion, to discuss Middle East refugees are:

Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker: Dean, The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University; Ambassador to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Iraq. Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

This is a particularly difficult issue as most Americans are by nature compassionate towards their fellow man and woman regardless of their country of origin or other unique characteristics. On this program we attempt to weigh humanitarian concerns against those of terrorism.

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I have a question: Why can’t we do more to “fix” the issues in the home countries rather than displacing them? A lot of these people have never done more than farm sheep, shine shoes or sell fruit from a cart. Some, if not many are illiterate, the ones that are literate have trouble implementing basic day to day chores such as checking the battery on smoke detectors (2 major fires in Somali family’s home in Arizona, both times the Somali mother claimed ignorance of detector battery checking) the refugee agency which oversaw her placement claimed- and I quote “sometimes it takes years for these people to learn new things” My 6 year old nephew understood the concept of the smoke detector and battery checking in one try, either the family is fibbing about “not knowing how” or there is some inherent fault in people that claim to take years(!) to figure out the complexities of checking a battery.

Wow, first of all, I was getting a little angry at some of the lies I detected from the Arab lady and the other woman, and was very relieved when the host called them on their evasion of the terrorist issue. The only panellist of this group who was forthcoming was A.J. Did the others not seem ill at ease and evasive? They wanted to put a pretty picture on immigration. The other thing was that these panellists were talking about legal immigration, about 3 month vetting, but when exactly and where exactly is this happening, and how does it miss so many illegals? The talk was mostly about compassion but the terror issue was pretty much ignored by the panellists. Lastly, I really have to disagree with the statements that Muslims do integrate. Maybe this occurs with the second generation, or the third, but many Muslims do not integrate well. Sharia law is NOT compatible with US morals and laws. A good friend of mine tried to have a friendship with a Muslim from Bosnia, who are much more likely to integrate and are more moderate than Middle Eastern Muslims. But that friendship ended when the different moral codes collided. I think if you really want to look at this issue in such a short timeframe, you’d need to have each panellist on separately and really dig at them to get to the truth. This left me with a sense that most were evasive and for the most part got away with it.